Kitāb Man lā yaḥḍuruh al-faqīh (Arabic: كِتاب مَن لايَحضُرُه الفَقيه‎) is a hadith collection mainly about jurisprudence (fiqh) complied by the famous Shi'a hadith scholar al-Shaykh al-Saduq. This book is among the most reliable books and one of the Four Books of Shi'a hadith.

Contents

Name

The full name of this book is Kitab Man la yahduruh al-faqih (The word "Kitab" sometimes is not mentioned). Its name literally means The book for the one who does not have a Faqih before him. Some translate the title as Every man his own lawyer.

Contents

In his introduction to the book, al-Shaykh al-Saduq says when he was at Ilaq (a region near Balkh), he met one of his friends and one day the friend mentioned a book compiled by Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Razi entitled Kitab man la yahduruhu al-Tabib (The book for the one who does not have a doctor before him) which is comprehensive, albeit small. So he asked me to compile a book on jurisprudence and lawful and unlawful for him… which includes all I have written about jurisprudence… and to name the book Kitab man la yahduruh al-faqih so that he can refer to it as a reliable book and act according to it when needed.
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Therefore the book is mainly concerned with jurisprudence and contains hadiths which are about lawful and unlawful. Since he meant to compile this book as a reference book to help ordinary Shi'a Muslims in the practice of the legal requirements of Islam, al-Saduq had mentioned hadiths he considered them correct. He says in the introduction of the book:

I did not have the usual intention of compilers (of Hadith books) to put forward everything which they (could) narrate but my intention was to put forward those things by which I issue fatwa and which I am sure of their attribution to the Prophet (s) and Imams (a).

In fact the work represents a definitive synopsis of all the hadiths which al-Shaykh al-Saduq had collected and included in individual books on specific fiqh subjects.

Structure

The book encompasses most of the areas of jurisprudence. It is arranged in small sections and every several sections constitute one major topic in jurisprudence; for example:

According to the author's classification, the book was arranged in four volumes and 666 sections. The number of hadiths al-Saduq has narrated in this book is around 6000.

Method

This book is written in the conventional method of that time in which jurists only narrated the hadiths about the subjects in discussion (in later periods of fiqh, faqihs write their own inferences from hadiths and other sources).

Since this book has been written for ordinary people, generally the "Isnads" of hadiths (that is, the chain of authorities by which the hadith had been received from the Prophet (s) or one of the Imams) is omitted. Al-Shaykh al-Saduq explains in the introduction of the book that "I omitted the Isnads, lest the book become voluminous." The scholars, however, could check the Isnads in other works of al-Saduq.

Sources

Al-Shaykh al-Saduq says that this work is driven by all hadiths and books he knew. He also gives an account of the works which he has consulted in compiling this book:

"all that mentioned in this book is derived from those well-known works that we should rely on them and refer to them."

This inclusion of the list of some of the works consulted is an evidence that the works of both al-Shaykh al-Saduq and his predecessor, al-Kulayni, who compiled al-Kafi, the first of the Four Books, represent the zenith of hadith works which had been compiled in a continuous process from the earliest times and at least from the time of Imam al-Sadiq (a).

In addition to these references which the author gives in his introduction he frequently refers to his own works during the course of the book. Thus at the end of his "Bab nawadir al-hajj" (Chapter of Exceptional hadiths about Hajj), he says: "I have published these hadiths with their Isnads with others in Kitab Jami' nawadir al-hajj ."

Position

This book has been esteemed as one of the most reliable hadith collections among Shi'a scholars, hence its inclusion in the Four Books. As all hadith collections, however, there is no guarantee of the authenticity of each individual hadith and the reliability of each must be separately assessed.

Commentaries

As one of the major works of Shi'a hadith, 23 commentaries have been written on it so far. Many of these commentaries have been lost or are unpublished transcripts. Among the significant Shi'a scholars who have written commentaries on this book are al-Shahid al-Thani and al-'Allama al-Majlisi.